City's fate in balance as fighting rages

ANKARA, Turkey－Ukrainian and Russian forces waged pitched street battles on Thursday for control of Sievierodonetsk, a city in Ukraine's eastern industrial heartland Donbas, as fears of a global food crisis escalate over Ukraine's inability to export millions of tons of grain through its blockaded ports.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky earlier described the battle as "one of the most difficult" since the start of the conflict in February.

The United States and the United Kingdom have announced they are providing Kyiv with long-range artillery, defying warnings from Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Russia's Defense Ministry said it used missiles against a Ukrainian military base in the Zhytomyr region, to the west of Kyiv, alleging that mercenaries were being trained there.

Ukraine, long known as the "breadbasket of Europe", is one of the world's biggest exporters of wheat, corn and sunflower oil, but much of that flow has been halted by the conflict and a Russian blockade of Ukraine's Black Sea coast. An estimated 22 million metric tons of grain remains in Ukraine. The failure to ship it out is endangering the food supply in many developing countries, especially in Africa.

Russia expressed support on Wednesday for a United Nations plan to create a safe corridor at sea that would allow Ukraine to resume grain shipments. The plan, among other things, calls for Ukraine to remove mines from the waters near the Black Sea port of Odessa.

Russia, which is also a major supplier of grain to the rest of the world, has blamed the looming food crisis on Western sanctions against Moscow.

The West has exempted grain and other food from its sanctions against Russia, but the United States and the EU have imposed sweeping punitive measures against Russian ships. Moscow argues that those restrictions make it impossible to use its ships to export grain, and also make other shipping companies reluctant to carry its product.

The conflict in Ukraine has left Russia more isolated from the West than at almost any time in decades.

Flights to the European Union have been banned, sanctions have cut off Russians from Western imports and Western retailers, from McDonald's and Starbucks to clothing retailers H&M and Zara, have shuttered their doors.

But McDonald's will be reopened under new branding later this month. It struck a deal last month to sell its Russian business to one of its local franchisees, retaining an option to buy the business back within 15 years.

Agencies Via Xinhua